open to life; losing my mind

Live cheap or (barkbarkbark) die

We live on an acre and a quarter of land. To the south of our house is a little lawn and the road; to the west is a field and a grove of aspens and pines; to the north is the back yard, garden, swing set, trampoline, and a gorgeous little stream. And to the east, really really close to our living room windows, is a big ol’ apartment house.

It blocks out the sky, and it’s kind of weird that it’s jammed up so close to our property. I don’t really mind seeing it right out the window, even though their porch is peeling like crazy, there are miscellaneous broken toys, barrels, and scraps of cardboard strewn around the grass, and a mildewed couch is hulking in the weeds. Hey, live free or die. As I’ve mentioned, we ourselves haven’t graced the cover of House Beautiful lately.

This picture was taken three years ago, when he was still a little puppy.

As you can see, he loves our children very, very much. So much. So very much that, whenever our kids are threatened by outrageously dangerous things like a nice lady carrying a baby into her apartment house right outside our living room window, Mr. Protective does his best to murder them to death with the sheer murderforce of his frenzied superbark.

The barking was bad enough; but along with three sweet towheaded children, the neighbors also have a bitsy little dog-like creature of their own, and this foolish creature is bound and determined to go pee in our yard. Because he is just longing to disappear down the gullet of our dog.

The obvious answer is, of course, to put up a big fence. But unless your name is Drumpf and you’re a sociopath, you’ll realize this is prohibitively expensive.

Lo and behold: on Memorial Day, the neighbors did it for us! I’m so happy. So now, when when we look out the living room windows, we see this:

So, hit me with ideas. What do we do with our side of this big, beautiful wall? Plant climbing vines? Paint regrettable murals? Establish beehives? Make a sundial? Start training one of those crazy flat fruit trees? Hire Wile E. Coyote to construct a portal to another world? I’m willing to consider anything, because the only thing cheaper than making the neighbors build a wall is talking about what do to with it.